Aviation Followups: Prozac Pilots, Russian Airplanes

I mentioned last week the (realistic and overdue) FAA ruling that people who take some kinds of prescription anti-depressants would no longer face an absolute, no-exceptions ban on serving as pilots, including as private pilots. (Technically, prescriptions for these drugs disqualify applicants from getting either a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd class FAA medical certificate, which in effect means they can't fly. You need both a pilot's certificate and a current, valid medical certificate to act as a pilot legally.) Instead they will be able to apply for case-by-case consideration, which would require detailed assessments by their doctors, at least 12 months of demonstrated freedom from side effects, and so on. More from Aviation Week here.

Yesterday I heard from a reader about the way the changed policy will affect him. He calls himself Prozac Pilot and is chronicling his experience at his site of that name. He also says that he has been interviewed on camera by CNN, and that when the segment runs it will reveal his identity and discuss his medical and flying background. He writes:

I read
the article you did regarding pilots with depression and the recent
policy changes of the FAA. I grounded myself two years ago when I went
on antidepressants. During the last few months I have been posting a
blog, www.prozacpilot.com.

When the FAA released its news CNN found my blog. I am "coming out of
the hangar" on CNN this Friday. Hopefully, I will be able to let others
in my position know they are not alone. I am looking for other media
outlets to help reaching those who need treatment. I would like to let
them know there is hope.

Next, the aviation tragedy in Poland last week and the reflexive guessing in much of the media that "aging Russian aircraft" must somehow have been to blame. Below and after the jump, comments from a reader with a lot of experience with and in these planes. (Previously here and here.) The reader writes:

I also am sick of hearing negative comments about Russian planes!

I am an engineer with a great deal of experience with American and
Russian aircraft. I have worked 15 years in Russia and have flown many
times with Tupelov 154 and 156, Ilushin 86 and others. I have found
them to be sturdy and reliable aircraft. In early days, as the only
western passenger, I was invited into the cockpit several times and was
impressed with the English communications capabilities of both the
Russian ground controllers and the Russian pilots.

It is also a fact that the age of a plane is not counted in years but in
the number of times that it has taken off and landed. In addition,
this plane had been recently completely refurbished. I am tired of
hearing about old Russian rust-buckets! Aeroflot, thanks to wise
investment of currency outside Russia, has been flying Boeing 737s for
at least 20 years!

Previously I flew frequently with the Russian military and found them
excellent in their flying capabilities, although former Mig pilots have a
tendency to fly straight up and straight down. Their maintenance was
impressive and their engineers have retained the capability of making a
part locally if it is not readily available. I have used this creative
capability in many of my Russian projects.

Finally, I have to agree that if the Russian controllers believed that
it was too dangerous to land in the fog, THEN IT WAS TOO DANGEROUS TO
LAND. If the Polish politicos pressured the pilots, they have only
themselves to blame! If the pilots chose to take the risk, they made a
decision that was impossibly foolish! In a previous year flying with
Air France's commuter from Paris to Le Havre, we arrived over Le Havre
to find the airport totally invisible in fog. I was sitting behind the
pilots, watched them get out the manual and heard their discussion of
the risk of landing or returning to Rennes. Thankfully, we returned to
Rennes and were met by a bus for Le Havre. This decision impacted
greatly our schedule of meetings at Le Havre, but at least we landed
alive!

James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter. His latest book is China Airborne.
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James Fallows is based in Washington as a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He has worked for the magazine for nearly 30 years and in that time has also lived in Seattle, Berkeley, Austin, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, and Beijing. He was raised in Redlands, California, received his undergraduate degree in American history and literature from Harvard, and received a graduate degree in economics from Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. In addition to working for The Atlantic, he has spent two years as chief White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, two years as the editor of US News & World Report, and six months as a program designer at Microsoft. He is an instrument-rated private pilot. He is also now the chair in U.S. media at the U.S. Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, in Australia.

Fallows has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award five times and has won once; he has also won the American Book Award for nonfiction and a N.Y. Emmy award for the documentary series Doing Business in China. He was the founding chairman of the New America Foundation. His recent books Blind Into Baghdad (2006) and Postcards From Tomorrow Square (2009) are based on his writings for The Atlantic. His latest book is China Airborne. He is married to Deborah Fallows, author of the recent book Dreaming in Chinese. They have two married sons.

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